YouTube celebrity Sam Pepper is under fire for a controversial video he posted in October and is now facing other serious allegations.

Sam Pepper is a famous YouTube personality, well known for his practical joke vlogs involving unsuspecting people on the street. His videos have been viewed by millions of people worldwide and has 2.3 million plus subscribers.

Recently, Pepper uploaded a video which was appropriately titled “Fake Hand A** Pinch Prank,” a video of himself going around and grabbing the behinds of random women.

This caused an uproar among many of his female viewers, who deemed his actions as sexual harassment and the video was quickly taken down.

While this video in particular has received a lot of negative feedback, this hasn’t been the first time that Pepper has posted a video of himself violating people’s personal space.

There was a video in which he would handcuff himself to women and wouldn’t let them go without a kiss on the lips. In another video, he would lasso a rope around women and pull them toward him. YouTube has since removed both videos.

Fellow YouTuber and avid feminist Laci Green wrote a letter to Pepper asking him to stop making videos that make women feel violated. The letter generated massive support from disapproving fans as well as some big-name YouTubers such as Tyler Oakley and John Green.

“It is very disturbing that we live in a world where the violation of women and girls’ bodies is not only funny, but profitable, and can garner considerable notoriety and views on YouTube,” Laci Green wrote on Tumblr.

In response to the heat he received for his offensive video, Pepper uploaded two more videos.  One was the same video as the first, but with a girl grabbing the behinds of men. The other was Pepper explaining the first video involving him grabbing women was just a social experiment to raise awareness about sexual abuse against men.

“I feel like he at first made it as a joke, but when it started to get controversial, he tried to make it sound better by saying that it was all staged,” said junior Sabrina Pardoe. “If he wanted to use the video as a statement like he claims, he would have explained it before the video.”

As a result of Laci Green taking a stand against Pepper, she began receiving emails and messages from females who claimed they had been sexually assaulted or even raped by Pepper.

Some of these women uploaded videos to let their stories be heard and to prevent these attacks from happening again. This response was so overwhelming that Laci Green decided to make a video called “Sam Pepper Exposed.”

In the video, Laci Green discussed how many girls came to her with stories about their experiences with Pepper.  But most were too afraid to talk about it publicly or go to the police because of the consequences that could arise.

In a follow up video titled “Sam Pepper Exposed 2,” Laci Green announced her campaign against Pepper had been working and most of his sponsors dropped him. She also stated that Pepper has not yet suffered any legal punishment for his crimes because the victims were too scared to press charges, and the ones who have tried to share their stories have been bullied into silence by his loyal fans.

“For the minority that do pursue justice, it is an uphill battle,” Laci Green wrote. “It’s a crime that happens behind closed doors, there’s usually no witnesses… so in court, it ends up being their word versus the rapist’s word. And overwhelmingly, people believe the rapist.”

Sadly, this type of situation is common. In a study conducted by Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), it was revealed that 97 percent of rapists will never go to jail for their crimes.

“If you’re speeding, you’ll definitely get fined If you’re drunk driving, you’ll get a fine or even some jail time,” junior Aileen Villalpando said. “But the fact that actual, physical harm done to people isn’t punished as opposed to hypothetical harm that could happen with reckless driving, shows that our justice system has some really messed up priorities.”

American society and the justice system make it difficult for people to even talk about crimes such as sexual assault and rape, let alone report them.

“I think we have a big problem with victim blaming. The victims are asked what they were wearing, if they were drinking, if they were at a party,” said AP U.S. History teacher, Troy Bristol. “What we demand of women to prove their claim is so discouraging to them, that they don’t seek the justice they deserve.”

Many victims are trapped in silence and forced to live with the idea that an exploitation of their natural right to personal space was their fault and that they should feel ashamed.

“Posting this video did the opposite of benefitting me. It has ousted me to public scrutiny, to rude and abusive comments, to shame and to fear,” said an  anonymous rape victim in her blog post. “I convinced myself that there weren’t any others. That I was just gross or wrong or fat and Sam probably didn’t treat other girls like that.”

Despite all that has happened, most of the YouTube community continues to fight back.

“We need to send out the message that regardless of who we are, or how famous we are, or who we become, we have a responsibility to respect the people around us and to look after the people who may…look up to us,” said up and coming British YouTuber Beckie0. “Rape, sexual assault, and any  form of abuse are most certainly not OK.”